Modern power electronics often make use of metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) and insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) in many applications. Power converters are comprised of a power circuit or topology consisting of power switching devices such as MOSFETs and IGBTs, control circuits that regulate the power conversion operation and gate drive circuits that serve as an interface between the two. Gate drive circuits are required to switch the MOSFETs and IGBT devices ON and OFF to control and condition the power conversion function. Gate drive circuits serve as the interface between the control circuitry and the power circuitry by conditioning and converting the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) control signal to regulate the power conversion operation as required by the characteristics of the power switching device used in the power circuit.
All switching power converter topologies require one or more gate drive circuits depending on the number, type and electrical connection of the power switching devices used therein. MOSFET and IGBT type devices are controlled by applying a voltage between a control terminal, traditionally referred to as the “gate” and a reference terminal, traditionally referred to as the “source” or “emitter” respectively. A positive voltage at the gate with respect to source or emitter, would switch an N-channel MOSFET or IGBT ON, whereas a negative or zero voltage at the gate with respect to the source or emitter would switch the device OFF.
Gate drive circuits with magnetic transformers are commonly used to provide galvanic isolation between the control circuit and the power circuit. Transformer isolated circuits provide a robust, high speed, low loss and low cost implementation of the gate drive circuit for most switching devices. Transformers require a balanced volt-time product in the applied drive signal to prevent saturation. As a result, they are generally more readily applicable to power switching devices that can support a symmetric, bipolar gate drive voltage to control their ON/OFF behavior. Silicon based MOSFETs or IGBTs are able to support such a symmetric, bipolar drive voltage.
However, next generation devices such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFETs do not support a symmetric gate drive voltage. The SiC MOSFET, for example, requires, at its gate terminal, 20V to be switched ON and −5V to be switched OFF. Transformer isolated circuits used in combination with DC blocking capacitors can be used with limited success but cannot generate controlled voltage levels for turn-ON and turn-OFF independent of operating duty cycle without compromising volt-time product of the transformer. To overcome this limitation, implementations of gate drive circuits using auxiliary voltage sources to generate the turn-ON and turn-OFF voltage levels, which are high in component count, cost and low in efficiency are used.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.